When DIY Ant Control Won’t Cut It

By Bug Girl - 07/26/13

They’re called an army for reason. Organized and relentless, ants have the seemingly singular ability to attack your home from every crevice. Like their human counterparts, these insect soldiers send out their scouts in the spring and early summer. These scouts scope out their prospects and return to their colony with reports of sugar bowls, tasty crumbs, and half-open boxes of crackers and cookies. They rally their troops and then they come for the goods—in droves.

No amount of hand-to-hand combat (you, smashing them) seems effective. Store-bought over-the-counter ant traps? They walk around them and laugh at your feeble attempts at laying land mines. That pesticide in the spray can that you bought at the hardware store? Well, that’s hurting you as much as it’s hurting them (it may even be hurting you more). And after you’ve directly sprayed the ants just in front of you, you see the steady stream of reinforcements coming in from your baseboard, your windowsill, the back of your cabinets.

Exasperated, downtrodden, you join the ranks of the invaded. You start to mutter to yourself, throw out your sugar, buy an endless supply of clumsy plastic containers to put your food in, and resort to keeping foods in the fridge that really don’t belong there.

We’ve all been there.

The Fourth of July rolls around. You start thinking about the Founding Fathers, the Boston Tea Party (and how you wish you had sugar for your tea), and in your patriotic daydream Benjamin Franklin pulls you aside and whispers “Hey, an ounce of prevention… Remember?” And he wags his finger at you (as any good father, even a Founding Father, should): “You’ve been penny wise and dollar foolish, friend.”

Professional, preventative maintenance is the most efficient, cost-effective way of keeping ants out of your home, and where they belong: OUTSIDE. It is also safer, healthier, and more humane.

We’re not saying Benjamin Franklin endorsed Debug Pest Control, personally. (That would just be silly, and Ahem! We’re being serious here!) What we feel safe in saying, in all seriousness, is that it is just plain old common sense that makes the most sense (and saves you the most cents) when it comes to ants. Prevent, and invest in a professional.

Then when the next Fourth of July rolls around, you can talk to Benjamin Franklin about more important things. Like what to do with all your now useless plastic containers…